**** DONE: GB-57 1/48 P-51K / Mk.IV Mustang - WW2 Foreign Service

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Later is now. The kit offers the early and late dorsal fin types and the joint of the vertical stab to the fuselage is, well..... awkward. Holding the parts togther shows an interlocking tab arrangement at the front of the joint and absolutely no means of lining up the joint at the rudder end. As is, the gaps are large and others who built this kit have had to apply filler here. Below is about the best you get without any mods, though it's still just a dry fit.

23032402.jpg

The issue isn't helped by the fact that Airfix have faithfully represented the fin offset from the centerline but, more imprtantly, both fuslelage halves are slightly warped. Below is the inner side of the same joint where you can see that the tab at the front rests on the a ledge moulded into the fuselage.

23032403.jpg

Here you can see the offset of the stab and the warp that needs to be accommodated:



Rather than fill the large gaps, I decided to work the joints by removing material from the tab so it sits deeper and chamfering the flat seam faces. After doing this and gluing things up with tape to align the edges near the rudder, things turned out pretty good:



The disadvantage of this is that closing the gap creates a small step on the top of the fuselage but this is easier to deal with than filling and scribing seams in my opinion. One the inside, after the TET set up, I reinforced the joints with gel CA. This will need to be smoothed at the rudder end so that the faces of the two fin halves come togther flat.



So that's all for today. Tomorrow is Mosquito day so no progress will be seen here for a day or three. Thanks again for following along.
 
Great choice, a good start and awesome fix. Here's something that annoys me other than kit makers not making Mustang wings to show the puttied over seams. There's a small hole on the right side and when you study photos showing the right side of the aircraft, there is a fair amount of staining coming from it. This to me should be a non-brainer to include



​
 
Eduard does have it.
 
Thanks for your interest and comments guys.

Geo, I agree with you about the puttied seams on the wings. I'd have thought someone would have at least provided the option of puttied and riveted. And thanks for pointing out the missing crankcase vent. It will be added with suitable curved staining.

Terry, I missed your original post showing Donnet's aircraft and I thank you for that. A possibility perhaps.

Late yesterday I smacked the fuselage halves together and, yes Don, there is a stubborn springiness that makes it hard to close the seam at the radiator scoop. I was not able to find the culprit after filing a pile of plastic off and so I think it might be some warpage. Is it was, I was able to easily close everything with "a couple" of clamps:



One thing that escaped my attention though was a pretty bad step in the seam right aft of the tail wheel opening and it was too late to pry everything apart to fix this. It's something I'll have to deal with after everything has set.
 
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